This invention relates to animal or pet foods and more particularly to the coloring of such foods to obtain a meaty, red color.
Animal or pet foods, whether they be of the dry; shelfstable intermediate-moisture; or canned variety are typically formulated so as to give the appearance of real meat in both color and texture. To achieve a meaty red color resort has been had to artificial coloring materials such as FD&C Red No. 2 or more recently FD&C Red No. 40 or Red No. 3. Consumer skepticism regarding such materials has led us to investigate other sources of raw meaty colors.
It is known in the prior art that rice acted upon by the mold Monascus purpureus becomes stained red by the mold. See, e.g., Hesseltine, A Millennium of Fungi, Food, and Fermentation, Mycologia, Vol. LVII, No. 2, 179-81 (1965); Lin, Isolation and Cultural Conditions of Monascus Sp. for the Production of Pigment in a Submerged Culture, J. Ferment. Technol., Vol 51, No. 6, 407-414 (1973). See also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,906. The thus stained rice has been used in the Orient for preparation of red rice wine. The use of a corn medium has also been tried. Palo, et al., A study on Ang-kak and its Production, Philippine J. Sci. 89: 1-22 (1961).